evangelisation & ICT an educational imperative for the knowledge age greg whitby executive director of schools july 2008
our mission The Catholic school shares the evangelising mission of the Catholic Church. This mission involves bringing the Good News into all strata of humanity, and through its influence transforming humanity from within and making it new (Evangelii nuntiandi 18). In making its contribution to this mission, the Catholic school pursues a synthesis of culture and faith and life (The Catholic School 37). When achieved, this synthesis enables students to make sense of their experiences and their world in the light of their faith. It does this through the religious culture of the school and, in a special way, through the curriculum. The contemporary age The age in which we and our students live and learn is characterised by accelerating change. We have left the Industrial Age behind us, moving through what is variously called the Global Age, the Digital Age, the Information Age or the Knowledge Age. So great is the rate of change that the dawn of the next age a Conceptual Age with an emphasis on inventiveness, empathy and bigpicture capabilities has already been identified and explored (Pink 2005). New opportunities All schools are challenged to respond creatively to this rapidly changing environment. Their students have already done so. Raised in easy familiarity with video games, instant messaging and the internet, they see our emails as old technology and eagerly explore the limits of the Web 2.0 social technologies with their peer groups which extend far beyond the local neighbourhood. This has widened the horizons of conscientious teachers who recognise new and exciting opportunities for personalising learning, for nurturing and responding to new cognitive patterns, for fostering collaboration and for reimagining what school can yet become. While every school is challenged to respond to the educational imperatives and opportunities of the Knowledge Age, every Catholic school faces particular challenges because of its mission. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are uncritical servants, mere tools, of those who use them. They can enhance productivity, assist the building of communities, strengthen human solidarity and serve the common good in powerful and innovative ways. At the same time, they can be powerful agents of materialism, consumerism and technocracy, feeding strictly pragmatic and mechanistic approaches to life. They can bring people into collaborative partnership and they can also foster unhealthy individualism and destructive alienation. Misuse can degrade, demean and marginalise. In other words, ICTs are what we make of them. Their power for better and for worse is pervasive. Our responsibility as Christian educators is to approach them with wise discernment that is grounded in a clear vision of how things can, and should be.
an opportunity to evangelise The Catholic school has the opportunity to place the new technologies by teaching through and with them and thus about them within a framework of a Catholic worldview. It can give them a special educational significance and enrich their use with an identifiable religious dimension. It can integrate them within the core religious work of the Catholic school. In a word, it can make them tools of evangelisation. A Catholic worldview Every school and system of education operates out of implicit understandings of the nature of the human person and society, the purpose of schooling and the processes of learning and teaching. These understandings affect all aspects of school life and culture and, especially, the curriculum. The Catholic worldview centres on the relationship that exists between God and creation as revealed in the ministry and person of Jesus Christ. All elements of this perspective affect both the culture and the curriculum of the authentic Catholic school. Three key understandings have a particular impact on all instruments and aspects of learning and teaching, including the information and communication technologies. 1. Human dignity Catholics believe that each person is created in the image of God with whom we have a unique and intimate relationship. Because of this, each one of us possesses an inalienable dignity and is called to the full development of spirit and body, mind and imagination. The Catholic school, therefore, seeks to develop the whole person. It sees all learning areas indeed, the total curriculum as serving this end. ICTs reflect the Catholic worldview, enhancing human dignity, when they: are used to improve the lives of people are used to develop personal competence for living a full, productive and virtuous life in the contemporary age develop the habit and power of deeper thinking, a spirit of critical inquiry and discernment, effective communication, personal responsibility and autonomy nurture personal creativity and stimulate the imagination are presented as tools of service, extensions of our God-given capacities, which have an important place in God's plan for us all.
2. Community We are social creatures, made for community. This is more than just a sociological construct. The Christian community makes the mystery of Jesus present to the world and makes us all part of that mystery. The church looks beyond itself, seeking to serve the wider community, offering it hope and bringing to it the qualities of the Kingdom spoken of by Jesus. ICTs perform great communal service when they: accentuate the social dimension of educating for life: cooperation, responsibility, compassion, stewardship and service provide their students with tools for fruitful participation in society build community by linking individuals and groups, especially through relational and social technologies include the marginalised, disadvantaged and alienated. 3. Transformation All Christians are challenged to create social conditions in which human dignity and human rights are respected, where communities flourish and where the Kingdom of God is present and growing. When they respond to this challenge, Christians share in God s creative work. ICTs become agents of this work when they: help students to achieve a systematic and critical assimilation of culture The Catholic School 26) provide students with the skills and insights that will serve society, especially the poor and needy, and build economies prepare students for serving the common good in a variety of ways strengthen a sense of communal solidarity, peace and reconciliation.
a privileged opportunity Contemporary Catholic schools have a privileged opportunity to bring a life-giving worldview to an age characterised by rapid change, globalisation, secularisation and technological advances beyond the wildest dreams of earlier generations. They do this when they bring a moral vision, grounded in a religious understanding of reality, to the curriculum and, especially, to the new information and communication technologies that have claimed an essential place in schools of the twenty-first century. Evangelisation and new technologies Surely we must be grateful for the new technology that enables us to store information in vast man-made artificial memories, thus providing wide and instant access to the knowledge which is our human heritage. Young people especially are rapidly adapting to the computer culture and its language. This is surely a cause for satisfaction. Let us trust the young. They have the advantage of growing up with the new developments, and it will be their duty to employ these instruments for a wider and more intense dialogue among all the diverse races and classes who share this shrinking globe. It falls to them (and to everyone) to search out ways in which the new systems of data conversion and exchange can be used to assist in promoting greater universal justice, greater respect for human rights, a healthy development for all individuals and peoples, and freedoms for a fully human life. Whether we are young or old, let us rise to the challenge of new discoveries and technologies by bringing to them a moral vision rooted in faith, in our respect for the human person, and our commitment to transform the world in accordance with God s plan. Let us pray for wisdom in using the potential of the computer age to serve man s humanity and transcendent calling, and thus give glory to God from whom all good things come. Pope John Paul II May 1989
conclusion There was never a conscious decision to invent ICTs and then offer the option for adoption, adaption or refusal. These technologies are a result of the way our contemporary world now works and the capabilities we have developed. While ignorance of the nature of the changing world may be an option for some, it should never be the preference for serious Catholic educators. These pervasive technologies are not some new gimmick to be thought of as optional extras to the way we live, work and learn today. ICTs are an expression of the creativity and ingenuity of humankind. As with every innovation throughout history, these developments provide challenges and opportunities to ensure everyone benefits from and is humanly enhanced through their use. The framework for engagement by Catholic educators has to be based on creative optimism. Genesis 1:31 tells us why: God saw everything he made, and indeed, it was very good. Discussion 1. What are some of the general challenges facing Christian educators who teach with and about the information and communication technologies within a secularised society? 2. What particular moral and ethical issues are associated with the internet and the social and relational technologies generally? In your experience, how are teachers responding to these? 3. What are some of the more creative and successful ways of using the ICTs that we have seen and experienced? What has been the secret of their success? 4. How can teachers use ICTs to: a) enhance the learning and develop the deeper thinking competencies of their students? b) foster the sense of a learning community and facilitate collaborative learning, both within the classroom and beyond it? c) develop skills and practices of discernment that are based on Christian values? d) strengthen a sense of service and global solidarity?
Diagram 1 Diagram 2
further reading Beare, H (2001) Creating the Future School London: Routledge Falmer Congregation for Catholic Education (1977) The Catholic School Vatican: Polygot Press Congregation for Catholic Education (1988) The Religious Dimension of Education in a Catholic School Vatican: Polygot Press Friedman, T (2006) The world is flat: a brief history of the 21st century. Farrar, Straus and Giroux: New York Groome, T (1998) Educating for Life Texas: Thomas More Heppell, S. (2005). Episode 1: Learning in the third millennium. http://connectcdn.educause.edu/files/active/0/dublin01.mp3 Pink, DH (2005) A Whole New Mind Crows Nest NSW: Allen & Unwin Pope Paul V1 (1975) Evangelii Nuntiandi Sydney: St Paul Publications Prensky, M. (2001) Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. NCB University Press, Vol 9, No October Richardson, W (2006) The New Face of Learning. Edutopia (October) p 35-37 Warner, D. (2006) Schooling for the knowledge era ACER: Camberwell contact Email: greg.whitby@parra.catholic.edu.au Blog: Web: bluyonder.wordpress.com gbwhitby.parra.catholic.edu.au